A Future We'd Like to See 1.13 - Tales of the Rainy City Act III By Twoflower (Copyright 1993) That event really BLED negative vibes, man. It was, like, totally stressful. It's not everyday my boyfriend is being hunted down by a murderer. Now, if he was attacked on a daily basis, maybe I could cope with it. But certainly NOT a single time. Really, I guess that's what my main problem was. All that bad karma must have affected me, because I couldn't put together a SINGLE sculpture in the time afterwards. And the MurfTech- sponsored C'atellian Art Compo was only three days away! I couldn't, like, withdraw from the contest, I had already entered. I looked over my most recent attempt. I painted a pair of shoes death mauve, and made a cheap skeleton to fill them out of tinfoil and styrofoam. I added a beat-up attache case I found in the dumpsters a week back, a nice plaid tie, and a hat painted blood red. I called it The Man. It symbolised big business, selling out, hypocrites, etc. But... but... it didn't SOAR, dammit! It was too obvious, too lacking in class. I took my handy project disposal unit (a ball-peen hammer) and recycled it, tossing the parts back into my main bin of art medium. "Fluki!" I shouted to my soon-to-be-hubby-once-he-gets-over- this-fear-of-commitment-thing. "Help!" His antennae poked around the corner to pense my feelings at the moment, so he'd know if he had to duck a flying chunk of medium. Sensing disappointment but not much else, he walked in. "Something wrong, dollink?" I grabbed the cheap plastic stool I had gotten from the city dump and dropped it in the center of my studio. "Here, sit." "Any reason?" "I need a model." "Should I take my clothes off?" Fluki joked. I just rolled my eyes, and waited for him to have a seat. "Okay. Now, like, give me... ANGER. No. Anger's bad. Not-good vibes. How about... surprise? No! Confusion. Good." "How long do I gotta sit here?" "Just a few hours," I said, dragging out the first twelve bits of medium from my storage bin. "HOURS?" Fluki exclaimed. "I can't, dear. Benson wants me to alpha test his latest triumph. Needta leave the pad to do that." "You boys and your silly games," I dismissed. "Now hold still. Alright." I took out a few peices which seemed to resemble Fluki's body. Two spring-toy-things for the antennae... big basketball head... rubberplast recycling can for the body, I'll spray paint it green 'n white... plastic tubing legs and an actual pair of sneakers. Hmm. No, ditch the sneakers, too realistic. What I need are some misshapen wooden blocks. "Got any wood lying around?" I asked, rooting through the bin. Of course, I gotta wear my rubber gloves and goggles for this. They've got other fun uses, but at the moment they're perfect for sifting through medium. "I could go collect the scrap from the hacked up door," Fluki suggested. "I'll grab them for you then head to Benson's." "Okay," I absentmindedly said. "I hope they're of a decent thickness--HEY!" Too late. Couldn't sense him for two hundred feet around. BOY, he runs fast when he wants to! Poo. He's no fun when I'm trying to Create. "Crash," said a noise from the window. I ran to the window, sandals flopping, and peered out. We live on the fifth story, so I get some great views of the street occasionally and can almost see the horizon on the few days each year when it's not raining. Some of my coolest work has been done from looking at the rainbows... a lot of C'atellians claim it never stops raining. I just say they're in denial. WOW! Head on land rover collision! An impressive one. Lucky thing both drivers had driver's side, passenger's side, left, right, roof, and floor airbags or there'd be some not-nice carnage too. In fact, they're busy arguing right now. Hmmm. Fluki claims that if someone bottled inspiration, they'd make a million. I think it's just horrible to try and contain something wild and free-spirited like that. Best let nature take its own course, as it is now. * "What?" the junk dealer said. "I need two old car bodies," I said, waving a slightly wet blueprint in his face. Okay, so I wrote it on a McSpackle's hamburger wrapper. It's a blueprint in spiritual essence, or something. "Any kind?" the dealer asked. "The least rusty ones you've got. One a sensible box-like car, another one of those custom creative jobbies." "Pretty specific order," the dealer said, taking out a notepad. It's a good thing a C'atellian invented waterproof paper and pens, or nothing would get done around here. "Want me to gift wrap 'em too?" "Make sure the custom one is wrecked, and the other's in good shape. Oh, and do you have a helicopter? I need these airlifted to the fifth floor loft of a building." The man blinked. "What?" * "What?" "Any old newspapers you can spare. And if you have any computer printout of stock quotes and such, I'd like that too." "Honey, this is the recycling center," the woman said over the desk. "We USE that stuff. We don't give it away." "But you SEEE," I whined, "It WILL be used. I'm reusing it like nature intended, and for a good use." "Namely?" "Art!" * "Portable pavement?" the worker said, confused. "Just like a six foot by twenty foot slab of road paving," I said. "With those neato yellow lines if you can paint them on." "Well, I can, but how are you going to MOVE it around?" "Leave that to me." * "Geek!" I said into my holophone back at the loft. A teeny 3-D piccy of my nerdy but really sweet pal popped on the screen. "Know those favors you owe me for helping you with your love life?" "Yeah?" his partially-cracked voice responded. "I need a working traffic light which blinks randomly, and a helicopter. Plus a few guys to take out my south wall." "Okay," he said. That's Geek for you. Doesn't question what you say, works patiently and efficently. Unlike some guys I know. "Good. How soon can you have it ready?" * First step was to knock out my south wall. A few guys popped up with Geek palying foreman the next day, while Fluki was out playing ping pong or something. Fortunately they brought axes and jackhammers and such, and I lent a hand with my ball- peen hammer. One of them suggested this was Man's Work, so I bopped him one with the hammer. When he came to, he was pretty quiet. Geek set up a mini-force feild to block out the rain from the opening. Geek's nice that way, he knows his way with electronics and has connections to people who do know in case he doesn't. The helicopter showed up earlier, and air-lifted the pavement, two cars, and light in. I cliked the force feild on 'opaque' mode in case anybody was spying on my Work. I had to admit, it came out GREAT. The road was painted with the two yellow lines, and a few others I added going in a variety of directions, some ending abruptly, to symbolise man's many choices of destiny. The light blinked on and off randomly, all four lightbulbs painted red to show that the government wants you to stop the creative flow. The two cars (lifted into place by those nice guys Geek knows), were positioned head to head. The custom one was painted with peace symbols and little cartoon characters, and the whole front end (which was smashed beyond recognition) was painted blood red. I had to harden little lumps of paint to make the drips of blood from the bottom of the car. All the tires were slashed. The other car was painted in sensible black, white and grey, with a mean eyebrow look on the headlights as it smashes into the neat car. I re-assembled the skeleton I had made earlier and put it at the wheel, painting what looked kinda like President Doofman's face on it. Let's see the other guys beat THIS. * "You KNOCKED OUT THE SOUTH WALL?" Fluki exploded. "Yeah," I said. "Hadda. The cars wouldn't fit in otherwise." "But... it was our WALL... oh, the landlord is gonna be all non-slack about this, just watch..." "What's wrong?" I asked, confused. Luki was pensing pretty strong depression and anger. "Look at the neat sculpture I got out of it!" "It's JUNK!" Fluki said. "Look, it's just two cars, some pavement and a light!" "Hey! That's my Artform you're insulting!" I said, getting really non-happy about this. "Sorry, but I really just don't get it." "You... you and your supposed non-conformity and slackness, and you don't GET it? It's JUNK?" I shouted. "Out! Get outta my studio!" "What? What?" Fluki protested as I shoved him towards the door, his sneakers making little squeaky noises on the floor. "You're sleeping on the couch tonight, buster," I said. "Well, if you're gonna be THAT way about it, forget it," Fluki said. "I'm leaving. Enjoy paying the rent alone, dudette." "Well, go then!" "I'm going." "So go then. "Hatter hap g'llar," Fluki growled, stomping out of the room, waves of anger pensing away. More stomping, and the door slam didn't follow. After all, the door was wrecked. "Good riddance!" I shouted, before completely bursting out into tears. * I spent the rest of the rainy night with the forcefeild on transparent, so I could watch the rain. I didn't care if anybody saw my artwork now. Let them. It doesn't matter. Rain always got me depressed. The only reason why I wasn't perpetually depressed on C'atel was because of a handy cloud of denial regarding the weather, and when it would end. Other C'atellians deny the sun, but I deny the rain. It's a bit harder to do, but worth it. I hate depressing, rainy nights like this. Fluki and I had never had a fight that ended like this... I was hoping somewhere deep down that he would come back soon. I was used to his vibes around me, now I just felt... empty. I suppose a metaphor would be needed here, but I'm not a poet. Fluki is. I needed a pick-me-up. Something silly and spotaneous that would take my mind off Fluki. I considered dancing naked in front of the force window, before realizing I'm not in some dirty story and that was a little too silly for me. So, instead, I grabbed a metal pot from my bin of Medium and my hammer and began whanging the two together, screaming "DON'T TRUST THE CHIPMUNKS! DON'T TRUST THE CHIPMUNKS!". I continued until I got bored, and the neighbors called the police, who showed up and calmly asked me to quit it. It was silly, and spotaneous. But it didn't help much at all. The HoloPhone rang, causing me to jerk my neck in surprise. I answered it cautiously, stepping out of frame from the phone's camera, and covering the lens with my hand. "Hi. You have reached Fluki Panookie and Eroki Mikki," I said, mimicing our... my, now... answering machine. "We're not in right now, but--" "Can the act," Benson said. "I know you're there. The answering machine has sounds of Fluki scribbing in the background." "Oh, hi Benson," I said, walking back into frame. "What's up?" "Could you PLEASE come over here and reclaim your boyfriend?" Benson pleaded. "He's been moping around my pad all night, eating Wheat Treatees and writing poems about endless angst and chaos. I'm worried he's gonna start dressing all in black and writing songs about crying soon, or maybe just set fire to my couch. Again." "No... I can't. He's gotta apologize," I stated firmly. "What'd he do, anyway? He seems to be in denial or something whenever I ask him." "He called my work... JUNK!" "Isn't it?" "Well, yeah, I guess refuse does play a part in the design, but I mean the final product certainly isn't junk." "How long do you think it'll take before he apologizes?" Benson asked. "I'm running out of Wheat Treatees, and frankly, he's starting to scare the neighbors." "I dunno," I sighed. "I mean, like, we've had the occasional burp in our symbiosis before, but it's never taken this long." "Alright," Benson sighed. "But if he starts opening all the windows and screaming at the sky again I might need to get him a motel room or something." The connection clicked off, leaving faint aftershadows of holoimagery, which then faded away. * Geek and his pals were there the next morning with the helicopter, and after a few tow ropes were secure, we air-lifted the whole piece a few miles down the road to the art pavillion. They protested about opening a skylight to airlift the work in, until Geek explained that it didn't really have to be open as long as they didn't mind sweeping up the broken glass afterwards. Gotta love the Geek. The judges went down the aisles, clipboards of doom neatly tucked under an armpit, ready to determine your artistic fate. "You are?" "Mrs. Beatrice Weadpea," the kindly old lady said. "And this is?" one of the judges said, poking at the odd foam figurine on my left. "I call it 'Plush Doof'. It's a free-form Nerf sculpture of President Doofman," the lady who made it said. "I've been working on foam statues for quite awhile. I started because I tend to be a bit clumsy, and kept ruining my marble and rock statues when moving them around. These just bounce a bit, and can even pick up some spills if I'm out of towels." The judges frowned a bit, gave the usual noncommital shrugs and made mad little tapping noises on the clipboards. Since this was being sponsored by MurfTech, the judges were naturally using Murflan writing, which was just a bunch of weird dot arrangements. Normal pens wouldn't do, since they made lines, so special ones had been developed. "You are?" "Eroki Mikki." "And this?" another judge asked as the pack of authority figures moved down the line to mine. "It's untitled. This is a material sculpture showing how big business and conformity crushes the creative spirit within," I said. "There are many symbols involved." "Care to explain any?" "No. Find 'em yourself," I said grumpily. "Something wrong?" "Relationship breakup," I replied. "I'm in the anger stage at the moment." "Alright," the judge shrugged. They seemed to be very good at shrugging. And making little dot marks. The judges moved onward. "Hey, you passed me," the Ytt to the right of me commented. "Prrgy T'wliiwa. What about my sculpture?" "Where is it?" one of the judges asked. "I call it 'The Meaning of Life'. It's right here, in this six foot by six foot square," he said, carefully walking around an expanse of air measured off with tape marks on the floor. "See, it represents the meaning of life, as it is transparent to the living eye, and can never be uncovered. The sculpture has been rendered invisible, through a special electronic feild." "Where's the machine that makes the field?" "It's invisible too. Neat, huh?" "But I'm walking around where you say this sculpture is," a judge said, stepping around the square carefully surrounded by tape, "And I'm not bumping into anything." "That's the catch, yousee," Prrgy said. "The meaning of life is right in front of you, but nobody can see or feel it. It exists, but not in any way we can think of, and thus we cannot determine it from mere senses of touch and sight." The judges shrugged, but a bit more positively, and moved onward as they made little dots. "That true?" I asked the artist. "Naah," he said. "I just like to play with people's minds." I liked this guy's approach, I have to admit. * It was only a minute or so until judging, and I was still depressed. The anger had faded, reverting me back to the depression phase of adjustment. I hope this isn't an infinite loop of some kind. Here I was, possibly at a great turning point in my life, and my soulmate as it were wasn't here. Poo. It wasn't fair, really. The whole argument lasted all of thirty seconds. It shouldn't have to end this way. If there's a god of true love... no, make that a god of love... or even a god of let's just be friends, PLEASE let him show up! "Eroki?" a cautious voice behind me said. "Thank you," I said to the sky. "Huh?" "Nothing," I replied. I switched back to the upset and angry tone of voice he left me in. "So, are you going to apologize?" "Yeah," Fluki said, shuffling his sneakers on the wooden floor. "I really was pretty insensitive there. I don't want... us, to end that way, dudette. I always figured it'd be over if one of us is hit by the flaming remains of a blimp, causing us to be splattered and fried, and only if we couldn't come back from the Other Side and--" "I get the picture," I laughed. "And I'm sorry I got so upset. We both acted like feebs, really, y'know?" "Yeah. You can go home now, Benson," Fluki called behind him. "Put the fireplace poker back." "'bout time," Benson grumbled. Boy, he didn't look good at all. Rings under his eyes, eyelids half closed, stains on his pajamas. "That's that last time I led you crash at my pad depressed. Didn't get a wink of sleep with all the yelling and crying." I looked oddly at Fluki, who tried to look away and avoid being embarassed. "I'll see you two at the club tonight," Benson said, lowering the poker. "I'm going home for a good day's sleep." "What was he here for?" I asked Fluki as Benson left out the side door. "Well, he led me here at poker point and threatened to skewer me if I didn't apologize," Fluki mumbled. "Hey!" "I AM being sincere, though," Fluki protested. "I did act like a weenie back there. It just took a large, restless black man armed with a heated iron rod to point it out to me." "The judges will now announce the third, second, and first place winners of the MurfTech Art Compo, in that order," the loudspeaker echoed. All voices in the building went silent, and Fluki gave me a big 'ol hug, waiting for the big moment. "Third place 5000 credit prize goes to Shawn Bogardus for his video production, 'Man's Crisis to Cope with Reality in the Latter Half of the Twentieth Century, Part Six'," the announcer said. "Two slots to go," I said. "Cross anything you've got that can be crossed..." "Second place, with a 10000 credit prize," the announcer continued, "Goes to Eroki Mikki for her untitled junk sculpture." "HEY!" I shouted back. "It's not JUNK!" "Come on, dudette! We won 10000 big ones!" Fluki jumped for joy. "Lesse, we bribe the landlord to ignore the south wall, that'll be five hundred, then we can get a totally kickin' van and paint all sorts of stuff on it or something--" "Shhh! I want to see who took my first place slot," I shushed. "First place, with 20000 credits," the announcer said, "Goes to..." "Who?" I wondered aloud. "To..." "The suspense is killing me!" "TO..." "GET ON WITH IT!" shouted a hundred enraged artists. "Prrgy T'wliiwa, with 'The Meaning of Life'!" "WHAT?!?" I yelled. "But... it's..." Prrgy shrugged and smirked at me, as a gaggle of art buyers rushed up and crowded around the tape-square. "What a novel concept!" "An invisible, non-solid sculpture!" "The symbolism!" "The GENIUS of it!" "If I give you a million credits, will you work on an invisible sculpture for my Proxima 6 private gallery?" "I'll give you TEN MILLION if you make an invisible fountain for my summer villa!" "Don't feel so bad," Prrgy half-whispered to me. "Just try to enjoy the irony of it all. I know I am." "Why you... you!" "Now now," Fluki said, holding me back from strangling the little twerp. "We got second. It was an honor just being nominated!"